Recently, I travelled to china to meet with one of our vendors. As soon as I set foot in the country, I was impressed with a variety of things that I saw.  The Shenzhen airport was big and modern. The familiar Starbucks logo and store were there—so familiar despite the strange surroundings. Thirty years ago, Shenzhen was a fishing village. Now, it is the third largest city in China, smaller only than Shanghai and Beijing….

It is time to call out the elephant in the room: in the technology space in the U.S., there is a serious lack of multicultural leadership. When I say leadership, I’m referring to the ability of techies (read programmers or developers) to inspire a multicultural organization, and to be the torchbearer who shines a light on the un-trodden path. Really, there are only a handful. To get to the heart of the problem, it’s important…

When we talk about leadership in the technology sector, it’s critical to start with a shared understanding of what leadership really is. There are plenty of misconceptions about what leadership is. Let’s start with looking at what leadership isn’t. True leaders are not: Dominating. Leaders don’t talk in loud voices with intent to suppress others. Controlling. Leaders don’t feel the need to control everything and influence others through that control. Colluding and manipulating. Leaders don’t…

To be effective globally, organizations need to foster cultural intelligence, especially in senior management. A couple of weeks ago, I met with the chief operating officer of a leading contract manufacturer with $18 billion annual revenue. He was interested in our technology, and I know he has a reputation for being influential within his organization. I was curious to understand him and how he had gotten to where he is. I found that he attributed…

Sometimes, a regular day sticks in your memory. I still remember one typical Monday. I woke up at 3:00 AM, packed a week’s worth of clothes, kissed my wife and child, and got on the road to go to the airport. On the freeway, I saw a guy on a motorcycle, who took off with a sudden burst from the streetlight. He was faster than me, but the burst of energy was contagious. When you…

Managers matter. Management style matters. For many workers, autonomy means trust. When I look back on my career, my best managers avoided micromanaging their employees. However, I’ve also seen it work for some leaders. Early in my career, while I still lived in India, I remember one interview, for a job with a newly-minted public company, very clearly. It was a Sunday afternoon in Bangalore. I had been scheduled to meet with Raj, but a…

I was excited to see an email from my alma mater, Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology, inviting me for a thought leadership summit. I knew I wanted to go, but I also knew I needed preparation. This complimentary, invitation-only VIP partner event that is hosted by Dr. Saby Mitra, who was our faculty director when I finished my MBA in 2012. He is being joined Dr. Ed Hess, professor of Business…

You might call it ambition. You might call it determination. You might even call it passion. I call it fire in the belly. Whatever name it goes by, though, this characteristic is far and away what I look for in every one of our employees as we build our organization.  Of course, every organization needs good people. High-tech supply chain and logistics organizations, though, need them even more to keep up with the fast pace…

A technical person would argue that 2+2 is always 4, never less or never more. This person would point to mathematics or physics. Perhaps, it would be an argument of common sense and logic. In human psychology, though, there’s a different kind of math, where two plus two might equal 10, 30 or more. When you build a team with the right kind of people, you capture extraordinary gains. Let me explain. In this mathematical…